New party should challenge Democrats

July 02, 2013

When I read that our local leaders Carol Liu and Mike Gatto were joining Gov. Jerry Brown and other Democrats to help gut the Public Record and Brown acts, I could not believe it. These two individuals have gone around town for years saying things like I am for the “people” and I support bills that are good for the “people.” What these politicians wanted to do is neuter and eviscerate California’s freedom of information laws. They wanted to make public access to laws created by our politicians more difficult to retrieve or interpret.

In Glendale, the Public Record Act has been used by activists to inform residents about high salaries, pensions and benefits of our city workers, bonus giveaways by former City Manager Jim Starbird. It’s also been used in American Disability Act investigations and to learn about the illegal transfer of money from the GWP to the General Fund, former Councilman John Drayman’s illegal building permits and more.

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Ironically, Glendale community activists are Democrats, Republicans and Independents who have been abused and scolded by council members while they seek the truth in accountability and transparency in government.

Ron Kaye’s June 21 column in the News-Press stated “When it comes to open and transparent government, California is as bad as it gets, ranking 49th in the nation.” What a testament for a state that is supposed to be “progressive.”

Many of us have witnessed over the past several years the Democratic Party control our state and other areas of government. We are a one-party state, with a supermajority, without a counterbalance of power. A new political party needs to emerge to counter the heavy-handedness of our one-party state.